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Published: November 1st 2008
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Back to Quito now and a final meal and drink with the guy’s and gal’s from the trip to the Galapagos Islands and my first ever Mojito, not bad.
Three of us are travelling together to the Inca trail and Machupicchu, Gary and Vickey. They both live in Sittingbourne, just along the road from me, so we have a lot in common to talk about.
We, the three Amigo’s, got up early to catch a 7.15 flight only to find it had been cancelled. They put us on the next flight at 18.15. Our theory is that they only had enough passengers for one flight, so they cancelled the first one.
Back to our hotel and the receptionist asked hat had happened an he gave us our rooms back and let us have breakfast, result.
The later flight now meant that there would be 6 of us travelling together as three had already got the later flight booked, but were travelling elsewhere.
I spent the day in Quito with the other 6 , we had some lunch, then we all went up in a cable car up to 4100 meters, very pretty, wet and cold, a sure sign of things to
come.
Mid afternoon and we left again for the airport after saying farewell to Fabio, who is from Canada, he was staying on in Quito for a few days more.
We got to Lima ok, later than expected, the hotel was not very nice, the rooms smelt of stale smoke.
Not impressed with Lima either, but I only had to stay here for 1 night before we left.
My new group of 14 consists mainly of girls.
We briefly met as I entered the hotel lobby, the others had been out to dinner together. Our intro’s were better after breakfast and then an early flight to Juliaca for our coach ride to PUNO our next stopover.
The plane stopped on the way at Cusco, then as we were about to land at Juliaca the pilot changed his mind and we took off again.
Very good value fight this one, two take offs, two landings and one aborted landing.
Now in Puno after our coach transfer. Nice hotel, Hotel Italia, recommended.
We wet into town for a wander and a light bite and my first, herbal tea, local leaves, know what I mean.
An evening in town, very friendly,
and good food, we all were tired and needed to get ready for the next day, so early nights all round.
Our earlier briefing told us what we needed for the next two days as we were doing home stays on an island in lake Titicaca.
We have adopted mothers who will feed us and house us, and in exchange we give food and gifts to say thank you for their hospitality.
The boat ride from Puno went to one island first, where we had a walkabout and our lunch. We also had to try and learn Quechua, the native tongue for this island, usual stuff like hello, my name is, and the likes.
This walking tested you a bit to see if you had acclimatised to altitude or not. I failed the test. I had problems with wind in my stomach giving me cramps, quit painfull..
When we left this island we went to the island we were going to stay on. We were told this was only going to be an hours journey across the lake, but the weather had other ideas, we arrived an hour late with most people opting to sit outside.
We were introduced to
View from plane
between Quito and Cusco. out surrogate mother and led off to ours lodgings for the night.
The adopted mother shot off and Pete, (my room mate), and I had trouble keeping up. She later realised this and took two of or bags from us and she still kept up this frantic pace.
We were knackered when we got there.
No resting now, no transport on this island, put the bag in our room and of again to see the sunset, more hill climbing, only just got it.
Back down now and time for dinner. We were given a delicious soup and when main meal was offered I had to politely decline as my upset tummy was protesting. Pete had some rice and veggies and said it was ok.
Up to our room where we had to dress for tonights disco??????????
Fortunately the guys only had to wear a blanket type of poncho, but the girls had to dress an local attire.
We got to the disco and compliments were passed around and many photo’s taken.
Have you ever had to dance to pan pipes an a drum? Weird. But the new family were up for it, (the dad and the son were playing in
the band), and we all had a great time, even though I had severe cramps. I had to ask my guide to apologise to my new mum for not eating dinner as my Quechua was very limited and did not include some of the words I would like to have used.
The disco finished around 10pm, but we were very tired after a long day of walking and sightseeing.
Straight to bed, straight to sleep, well almost, as my cramps were very painfull
Up at 6.30 for breakfast, politely declined by me, but Pete had pancakes, damn these cramps.
I settled for a boonya tea, that’s coco leaves and mint, very medicinal.
We said our farewells and handed over the gifts and then headed for the dock for our 8.00 boat, dad took us to the dock, we were quite relived as the pace was a bit slower.
Now we were on our way to the world famous floating islands on Lake Titicaca.
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